


when long night falls

by downtheroadandupthehill



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Implied Petyr Baelish/Sansa Stark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-09 15:40:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1988433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/downtheroadandupthehill/pseuds/downtheroadandupthehill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Appearances can be deceiving, and Jon is not yet used to discerning truths from lies. Her hair is brown enough, even in the candlelight, where Sansa’s was red. Ygritte was kissed by fire, as was Sansa. Neither had been lucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Jon

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to lady-annabeth-stark for helping me edit. Find me on [tumblr](http://andromachey.tumblr.com/).

“And this is my daughter, Alayne Stone,” Lord Baelish says, as a tall young woman steps forward.

“Milord.” Alayne murmurs  as she curtseys, a curtain of nut brown hair falling forward to shadow her face. She keeps her eyes lowered, while Jon Snow fights for breath.

His gaze darts to Baelish-- because he cannot look at the girl, cannot stare or gape without wanting to reach a hand out to her--to where he stands with his hands clasped behind his back, a small smile twisting at his lips.

Jon has never been a player in this game, not until he died and Melisandre’s flames brought him back and she whispered to him slyly  _there is power in king’s blood, Jon Snow_. He was abruptly compelled to ride south after that, to the Targaryen princess and her dragons. And north and south and north again. And now east and west, as well, gathering men as he goes. Still a bastard, but a royal one, and with a Dragon Queen’s command at his back, suddenly men will follow him.

He has never been a player in this game, has never had the chance to master it. He feels like Ned Stark--his father in everything but blood.

Alayne Stone reminds him too much of poor, dead Sansa Stark, but at least he knows he should not stare. But something on his face has given him away, he knows, as he sees the little laugh lines crinkle in the corners of Baelish’s eyes.

At his side, Jon keeps his hand on Ghost’s head. He feels the direwolf’s ears perk up, and it takes a scratch of his fingers to keep Ghost still.

Jon can only clear his throat as Alayne steps back. Baelish leans over to her, a tight hand on her shoulder as he whispers something in her ear. As Alayne looks up at her father, he sees her eyes--as blue as Lady Catelyn Stark’s, as blue as Sansa’s. She nods, takes another step back, and sweeps out of the chamber in her simple grey gown, head ducked low so that Jon does not get another glimpse of her face.

Baelish watches her until she’s left the room before turning back to Jon. He does not bow or scrape to him as other lords have done, has not since Jon finally arrived at the Eyrie the night before and was quickly ushered into a warm chamber with a bed and a bathtub that he was all too grateful for. He’s alone here, save for Ghost--having left his men at the Gates of the Moon--but under the scrutiny of Petyr Baelish, he is regretting the necessity. He feels safe enough with his direwolf beside him, but the camaraderie and conversation of his friends is sorely missed.

Jon took his breakfast in his chamber, taking the time to rehearse his words to the Lord Protector of the Vale, the same words he’d recited to the other lords of the Seven Kingdoms, echoing the motto of the family he’d never really belonged to:  _Winter is coming_. And along with it, Others and their wights. Prepare for another war; head north with as many men as you have.  _As many men as you have_ left, he should say, after the Lannisters and a false prince and finally Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons have had their way with the kingdom’s populace.

He thought he would know what to say to Petyr Baelish by now, but the glimpse of his sister’s ghost has rocked him, and he’s still struggling to keep his face guarded.

“Welcome to the Eyrie, Lord Snow,” Baelish begins, with a small nod of his head. As Baelish says it, Jon remembers Ser Alliser Thorne, and is not comforted in spite of how he’s learned to make his name his own. “Here on official business, I presume? I have no council here, save mine, and Lord Robert is far too young to understand the game of war and lives and deaths-- ravens and rumors reach us even here, of your imagined threats beyond the Wall--so you will have to treat with me.”

Jon gives him a slight bow. He had expected as much, in speaking with the minor lords of the Vale before ascending the Eyrie, all of them waiting for their liege lord’s decision on the matter, whether or not to go north and fight.

Baelish leads him from the austerity of the High Hall to the solar of the Lord of the Eyrie, Baelish’s solar now as Lord Protector, and Jon tries not to look for the girl called Alayne. Lords are stretched thin everywhere, even here, where Jon only passes a few servants, each of whom eye Ghost with much trepidation, quickly bow their heads and mutter some sort of obeisance. He’s not even sure himself what they’re all meant to call him, the queen’s bastard nephew, a newfound favored one, and the newly made Lord of Dragonstone. The title reminds him of King Stannis, who died at Ramsay Bolton’s hand. Ramsay Bolton, who’d died at Jon’s, officially for treason. He’d not passed the sentence, but he was happy enough to swing the sword that ended it.

The Starks were traitors during Aerys II’s reign, but Queen Daenerys viewed them as the lesser of two evils, thank the gods.

Alayne makes no appearance in the hall, and Jon tries to be grateful for that, too. He needs his head about him while speaking with Baelish--not distracted, thinking of girls who look like his long-dead sister.

At Baelish’s behest, he sinks into a chair at the hearth, grateful for the comfort. Even after a full night’s sleep, Jon is still weary and aching from his long, lonely climb. It is a relief to sit by a fire, rather than being forced to stand in the High Hall, looking up upon Baelish in a weirwood throne. Ghost settles quietly at his feet, watching Baelish with his red gaze.

“Lord of Dragonstone,” Baelish muses, seated opposite Jon, eyes fixed intently upon him. Jon feels naked beneath his gaze, as if Petyr Baelish can read his secrets written upon his face. A servant comes, to pour them wine. “But not Winterfell?”

“Winterfell is Rickon’s seat, not mine,” Jon says. He will indulge the man’s curiosity. “If you’ve heard of my new title, then surely you have heard word of his?”

“And Rickon Stark long thought dead. What of that?”

Stannis’s man had brought Rickon back from Skagos a year past. Jon saw him at White Harbor, the last time he was in the North. Untamed, unruly, more wild than Jon had imagined, with Shaggydog forever at his side. He’d not recognized Jon at all, and reluctantly held the hand of a wildling woman he called Mother. But Lord of Winterfell all the same, and even King in the North, as Wyman Manderly wished to claim. He would be fostered at White Harbor until the war was over and Winterfell rebuilt. If the war was won. But Baelish surely knows of this--he  is the sort of man to know everything. Jon knew little of the Lord Protector, but he had learned that much.

“Rickon lives,” Jon grunts. “And Winterfell is his.” If he’s ever fit to claim it, to rule--if the boy should even  _want_  it. “But--”

“The Wall is overrun by dead things that walk, and soon the rest of us will be, too.” Baelish reclines in his chair, reaches for his wine. Jon leaves his untouched. “I’ve had word of that as well. You have the realm in quite a stir over a few phantoms, Lord Snow.”

Jon leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “I’ve  _seen_  them, fought them. There are thousands, tens of thousands, and the Wall has fallen. Whatever strength the kingdom has left must look to the North, or the entire Seven Kingdoms will suffer for it. Here in the Vale, too.” Jon doesn’t say that he’s seen for himself the strength of the Vale, far removed from the wars for the Iron Throne, its Lord Protector seemingly aloof and impartial. The Vale does not thrive, but it has yet to burn, either. The Eyrie is nearly empty now, while its lords protect their lands. There are men worth having in an army, and why Jon has come.

“And what of the South?” Baelish asks him. “Our new queen and her fearsome dragons? Do they go North as well?” His smile is almost a sneer, like he already knows the answer to his question. He likely does, Jon considers.

He will not speak of the queen’s dragons, kept chained inside the hastily fortified Dragonpit. Wild, deadly things, that Queen Daenerys had the sense to leash after the South proclaimed her Queen. Jon heard rumor that she had cried as the chains were forged, and forced herself to watch as her dragons put away, but with dry eyes.

“They do not.” Jon keeps his answer short. “There are matters to tend to in the South. The business of ruling and rebuilding. That is not what I have come for.”

“But I served on King Robert’s Small Council, and King Joffrey’s after him. I have an interest in the business of ruling. Come, try your wine. Arbor gold, a rare luxury in these times. Indulge my interest, Lord Snow.”

Jon grits his teeth, bites back an angry retort. He ignores the goblet at his side. “My time is limited. I have only days here before I must leave for The Twins. The Seven Kingdoms is in dire need of men and food and horses, if we are to survive what is coming, and I am asking for your help, Lord Baelish.”

Baelish sighs. It’s a dramatic affair to demonstrate his disappointment, but Jon is unbothered by the display. “You have days here. I will consider it and send ravens to Lord Robert’s bannermen to learn what they think of this dire need. You may take your ease in the Eyrie, for now. Your wolf, too.”

Jon takes a swig of wine at that, feeling exhausted by his endeavor already.

…..

Supper at the Eyrie is an intimate affair, taken in a small chamber rather than the High Hall. With all of the lords gone, there’s little use for the Arryn’s hall or any sort of formal meal.

Robert Arryn heads the table, and as a guest of honor, Jon sits at his right, while Ghost remains in Jon’s own chamber with a raw haunch of mutton. They’d not have the direwolf around the little lord, Baelish insisted.

It’s his first time seeing the boy. He’s sicklier than Jon expected, looking like a child of six instead of ten, with rheumy eyes and shaking hands. The child picks at his meat but only takes a few bites. Jon himself tries not to wolf his down too eagerly, reminding himself that he’s a proper lord now, and not amongst his brothers at the Wall. It is little things like this that he’s still trying to learn.

Baelish is at the other end of the table, his daughter Alayne at his left. She takes small, dainty bites from her plate. Her hair is braided now and harder to hide behind, but still she will not meet Jon’s eyes. Again, Jon finds himself staring, and tries not to, rather attempting  to focus on the prattling of little Lord Robert.

“Tell me about the dragons!” he urges, practically shrieking, and throws his fork to the floor. “How big were they? The dragons won’t come here, will they?”

“Sweetrobin,” Alayne interrupts in a soft voice, across the table. “Leave Lord Jon to his supper. Aren’t you hungry, too? Have another bite, for me.”

“No!” Robert fidgets in his chair. “I want to hear about the dragons!” His voice is a wheedling whine that threatens to give Jon a headache.

Alayne rises from her chair, despite the staying hand that Baelish places upon her arm. She’s next to Jon, then, as she leans down to retrieve Robert’s fork, and Jon eyes the pale length of her neck as her braid falls to the side.

She’s tall enough to be a Stark, Jon considers, unable to prevent himself from making the comparison. Though she possesses more patience than he can remember Sansa ever having. Sansa Stark of Winterfell would shout back at this wailing boy and complain loudly to anyone within hearing distance of his rude manners--although perhaps not of a lordling. He isn’t sure. Jon’s memories of Sansa are fewer and foggier than his ones of Robb and Arya.

“Have another bite, for me,” she says again, spearing a bite of meat for the Lord of the Vale and holding it up to his closed lips.

Robert opens his mouth, accepts the meat, chews it sullenly.

“There you are,” Alayne coos. “My strong Sweetrobin needs his supper, doesn’t he?” She feeds him another bite that way, before returning to her seat at Baelish’s side.

“Thank you, my sweet Alayne,” Baelish says, and pats her hand with uncommon fondness. He leans over to kiss her cheek. As he watches, Jon has to bite the inside of his cheek.

…..

Jon tries to sleep. The featherbed is more comfortable than anything he’s slept on in a fortnight, and his belly is fuller, too. Sleep ought to come easy, but his mind is awake, considering Baelish’s words and which way he could turn. But the other man is nigh unreadable, Jon thinks as he rolls over in his bed. Baelish will keep him dangling until he gets what  _he_  wants, first, whatever that might be. A higher title from the Dragon Queen perhaps, or a place on her Small Council.

Ghost is restless, too--there is no hunting to be had this far up above the earth, and he’s in sore need of exercise even after one day. He paces the chamber, while Jon listens to the click and clack of his nails upon the marble floor. If only Ghost could hunt and Jon could sleep.

Keeping his thoughts from Alayne Stone is a careful task, and a wolfdream would be a welcome relief.

He huffs out a sigh into his pillow, and when his chamber door cracks open, only a sliver of candlelight peeking through, he barely even startles. Longclaw is already at his side--he never sleeps without it, sharing his bed with Valyrian steel--and he carefully wraps his hand around its hilt.

But Ghost--Ghost does not even raise his hackles.

A figure slips in, their fingers curled over the candle they carry to dim the light. Jon can tell by the silhouette that the figure is a woman, tall and slim and seemingly unarmed, although she could have a dagger hidden amongst her skirts.

“You’re awake,” Alayne Stone whispers, in Sansa’s voice. Like Sansa’s voice but lower, and five years older, and more unhappy. She looks at everywhere but his face, as she settles down on the edge of the bed nearest Longclaw. She sets the candle carefully on a table beside Jon’s bedside. Ghost comes to her immediately and sits before her, and Alayne reaches out a tentative hand to the direwolf, to let him catch her scent.

Jon lets his grip on the sword’s hilt loosen. “I do not mean you harm, Jon.” Not milord or Lord Snow, Jon realizes, and releases the sword entirely, sits upright. She’s almost familiar with him. A bastard, just like him, or so the story goes. Appearances can be deceiving, and Jon is not yet used to discerning truths from lies. Her hair is brown enough, even in the candlelight, where Sansa’s was red. Ygritte was kissed by fire, as was Sansa. Neither had been lucky.

“He thinks you’re a fool, speaking of wights crawling across the north. And you’re too honest to be a liar,” she says, eyes fixed firmly on her lap, where her hands are neatly folded. Like a lady’s.

There’s no preamble, no explanation, but he knows who she’s referring to. “And the Dragon Queen’s pawn, besides, which is worse. He’ll kill you, given half a chance. Throw you from the Moon Door.” She pauses, considering. “Or poison. It’s neater, and there will be a corpse to send back to your men. He’ll say you took sick, of course, and no one would be any the wiser.” Then Alayne looks up, finally meets his gaze.

Those Tully blue eyes, in an expression harder and more tired than one he’d ever seen on Catelyn Stark’s face, let alone her eldest daughter’s.

“I wanted to warn you.”

A lifetime ago, Jon may have felt awkward with a young woman in his bedchamber, and him in nothing but his breeches. Alayne appears unperturbed, not even a flicker of concern flashing across her face as she looks him over, takes in his bare, scarred chest. It’s then that Jon realizes Ghost is a direwolf turned puppy--his head is in Alayne’s lap and his eyes are closed, as he lets her pet him gently.

“Why?” Jon manages.

She frowns for a moment, thoughtful, and then: “We’re bastards both, so we should look out for one another, should we not?”

It’s a genuine question, judging by the arch of her eyebrows, so Jon nods. “Thank you, my lady.”

“Alayne,” she presses, suddenly intent, moving her face close to his. “No lady. Just Alayne.”

“All right. Alayne.”

He watches her shoulders relax. “You have some time. You are a player now and he’ll want to learn all he can from you, about what’s going on in King’s Landing. The new queen. Speak vaguely, but do not lie. Never lie. You have some time yet, before you must try to escape.” Alayne swallows, the only sign that she is anything less than perfectly composed. “I will warn you again, when the time is right. Father does confide in me.”

 _Father_. Petyr Baelish. It threatens to rock Jon off-balance. He’d almost forgotten that she was the daughter of his host. Either that, or--

Alayne’s warm hand presses his, lacing their fingers together. A sad, sweet smile spreads across her face. “It is so good to see a familiar face, Jon.”

 _You remind me of home_ , he wants to say, but doesn’t. This is a careful dance he is only learning now, and he mustn’t stumble, say too much. He knows, he  _knows_ , and voicing the questions crawling up his throat would be too much.

“Thank you,” he says again, because he has to say  _something_. And then her hand is leaving his as she rises to her feet--Ghost rises, too--and smooths the skirt of her gown. Alayne reaches for the candle and blows it out. She’s silent as she leaves, although in the doorway, Jon sees her glance back briefly at him, over her shoulder. It’s too dark to make out her expression, but he imagines that she’s still smiling.

“Alayne,” he says aloud, after the door is closed, just to remind himself of her name. Alayne, but here and whole and that means something.


	2. Alayne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://andromachey.tumblr.com/).

That night, Alayne dreams of home.

_Winterfell_. Sansa’s home, not Alayne’s. She’s learned to separate the two when talking with Sweetrobin and the Vale’s visiting bannermen. Alayne Stone has never seen the North, but Sansa has and so Alayne misses it fiercely. Hadn’t even realized how much she misses it, until seeing Jon Snow’s long Stark face in the halls of the Eyrie. He looks like her father--Sansa’s father, not Alayne’s. Their solemn grey eyes are the same. And now Alayne misses Ned Stark, too. And Catelyn and Bran and Robb and Rickon and even Arya who Sansa had never gotten on with--

It’s a longing that Alayne has learned to stifle most days, but now Jon Snow is here and her heart is suddenly heavy with it. She’d known she missed the boy who was raised as her brother, but had not realized just how much.

Alayne dreams of hot springs and the clanging of practice swords in the courtyard and direwolf pups in summer snow.

Winterfell.

After all this time it’s a target, a goal, and not the dream it had been in King’s Landing a lifetime ago. Sacked and burned but _hers_ , Sansa’s, and Petyr’s promised that he will take her home when the time is right. Rickon is naught but a child and Sansa Stark is a lady with blue eyes that men will drown in, and Lady of Winterfell she will be, Petyr promises Alayne.

_Or even queen_ , he’s whispered in her ear more than once, because he thought himself a king-unmaker and now a queenmaker and likes the idea of bedding a queen even more than that.

She’d thought Winterfell so twisted by his schemes that she’d forgotten what it looks like--

But that night, Sansa dreams of thick granite walls and a garden made of glass and Stark grey eyes like her father’s.

…..

“You did not come to bed last night, Alayne,” Petyr says, as he walks into her chamber. There’s no admonition in his voice--if he feels disappointment, he hides it well. He hides everything well, Petyr does, and Alayne’s learned well enough from her father. She so rarely hears anything but intrigue when he speaks and she hears it now.

She’s seated at her looking-glass in her bedchamber in the Maiden’s Tower, running a brush through her brown hair. Alayne does not turn around at his entrance, at his statement. He can read her face well enough as he watches her in the looking glass, as she blushes and meets his reflection’s eyes.

“I’ve had my moon blood, father,” she says. “I slept here, instead.”

He nods. An acceptable answer then, and one that he does not yet disbelieve. She can see the shuffling and re-shuffling as it happens behind his eyes. He’d expected an evasion or an excuse, but not something so forthright, Alayne can tell. She tilts her head to the side when Petyr reaches out and strokes his lukewarm hand down the side of her neck, resting it on her shoulder.

_I missed you_ , another man might say. Might. Alayne nor Sansa would know. But such sweet and honest words are only the stuff of ballads, and life is not like in the stories.

Instead, Petyr says: “What of your brother? The infamous bastard Lord Jon Snow? Has he tried to exchange words with you yet?”

“Half-brother,” Sansa says. That reply is automatic, unrehearsed. “But no, not even that.”

“Cousin. Thanks to a red priestess’ fire and the words of Howland Reed, if the tales are true.” Petyr fingers his beard; his other hand still sits on Alayne’s shoulder, and his thumb rubs along her collarbone thoughtfully. “He seemed arrested by your presence here when he first saw you in the High Hall.”

Alayne begins to brush her hair again. “An untelling likeness to his dead sister, that is all he saw. Besides, he remembers Sansa’s hair as red, and mine is brown.”

Petyr watches her in the mirror, too intent. Alayne stares back, wonders if he can feel her heart beating just below his hand. She sets the brush down on the table carefully.

“That’s cold of you, Alayne. We all know how important family is.”

He sounds as if he chiding her, but she can hear his words for what they really are: a test. Alayne was too cold, too uncaring, and that is something he _will_ disbelieve.

She exhales slowly and starts to plait her hair. Her fingers are deft and she can do it without looking.

“He was not my brother, not like Robb was.” An old wound, not quite a scar, and one that Petyr will not open further. “And now we know he never was. Not like Rickon.”

_That’s_ a recent point of contention between them, ever since they received the news that Rickon lives, several moons ago. An effective distraction to stop this turn of prying. Sansa will not be Lady of Winterfell now that Rickon is in the North, Alayne insisted. She will not take what belongs to him.

“And Snow’s claim to Winterfell is stronger than yours and Rickon’s both, should he press it. Robb named him heir, and he has the men behind him to take it. He’s already taken it from the Boltons, and he’s on his way back north.”

She finishes her braid with a blue ribbon and shifts to face him properly, looking up at him through her eyelashes the way she knows that Petyr likes. “He _could_ take it,” she concedes. There is no point in arguing otherwise, and this is something she can afford to tell the truth about. “But he will not. He’s too much like my father.” Her other lies are worth the cost of this aching honesty.

Alayne is taller than him when she’s on her feet, but when she’s seated like this, Petyr can loom over her. This is something he likes, too.

He bends down to meet her eye to eye and cups her face in the palm of his hand. He can feel the flutter of her pulse like this, and she hopes he thinks the cause is something other than the fear of a lie or two sniffed out.

“Which father?” Petyr finally asks, smirking and teasing and Alayne feels herself breathe easier even as he leans in to kiss her on the mouth.

…..

She spends the day with little Lord Robert. It’s how Alayne spends most of her days--entertaining the boy and encouraging him to eat at mealtimes. They’ve fallen into a routine of sorts, since the bannermen of the Vale entrusted him to Petyr’s care. Most of their time is spent in the library, where Alayne gives him lessons. History lessons, lessons for lordship, and whenever he grows restless, she’ll ease him with a story. He has fewer fits than he used to, which Alayne is grateful for. Maester Colemon, too. Sweetrobin needs fewer leechings and sweetsleep than he used to, as well.

_You’re not doing your own cause any good, Alayne_ , Petyr has told her more than once. _The boy will never die if you continue to coddle him so._

Alayne knows he’s right, she _does_. They’re counting upon the death of Robert Arryn so that Harry Hardyng can inherit the Vale--it is only then that Sansa Stark can marry him and become Lady of the Vale as well as of Winterfell.

Sansa, not Alayne.

But Sweetrobin has only seen ten namedays, and that is only one more than Bran had seen before Theon Greyjoy slaughtered him. A boy utterly unlike Sansa’s younger brother, but Alayne cares for him almost the same. Naught but a child and too young to get caught up in Petyr’s plots. Why plan his death when he has scarcely lived? It’s a heartless thing and one that Alayne cannot stomach.

Petyr only allows her coddling because _Look at the boy. He’s bound to die with or without our influence, but you’d take care not to become too attached, sweet Alayne._

She likes it as little as he does--another boy of hers to lose, but it’s nothing she can help.

He stomped through her snow castle once--brothers are a nuisance like that--but she’d like to teach him kindness.

The library is small and dusty. Even before the wars came, its only inhabitant was Maester Colemon. Sometimes Lord Jon Arryn, when he visited from King’s Landing. She imagines her lord father and King Robert amongst the books, fighting with wooden swords instead of attending to their lessons. There was once laughter here, ringing about the Eyrie’s marble walls. Alayne doubts there will be again.

Her eyes skim the same page again--an old maester’s account of oats and barley, as dry as the paper the words are written upon. Merely something to stare at while Sweetrobin mumbles his reading aloud. They’ve been studying the reigns of the Targaryen kings for two moons now, and Sweetrobin has reached Aegon III. He confuses them all, the Aegons and the Aemons and the Daemons, and she’s as patient as she can be. His reading is steadier than it used to be, at least.

The door is open, and Alayne almost misses the sound of footsteps on the marble floor. She glances up, expecting Gretchel or Colemon--and finds Jon Snow there, lean and tall in black wool and black boots. Dressed just like he dressed at the Wall, she thinks, though less warm. She should’ve known it was him by the sound of his boots, she chides herself. Alayne always takes such care, even when it is just her and Sweetrobin at their reading.

He steps toward them both and stops at Robert’s chair, making the little lord an awkward bow even as his eyes are drawn to her. “Lord Robert,” he says, and tugs his gaze away from her to look at Sweetrobin instead.

Alayne blushes watching him, and she’d duck her head to hide her face if anyone else were in the room to see. He’s a fool to seek her out, an utter fool who will give them both away. The sight of him is still a shock she’s not accustomed to, seeing her father’s and sister’s features writ so wonderfully upon on another person’s face. Moons ago, she was certain hers was the only Stark face she’d ever see again--and barely a Stark at that, looking so much like her lady mother.

“Lord Jon,” Sweetrobin says slowly. Alayne taught him to be courteous, when he has a mind to be. Today finds him in an improved mood since last night’s supper. “Have you come to join our lessons?”

“Perhaps.” Jon dares another glance at Alayne. She only purses her lips in response, though she supposes he expects a shake of her head, or a nod. His presence there disturbs her, sends her mind reeling with fear for him and for their unspoken secret. But she wants him there as well, wants to soak up what she can of his Northness by simply being in the same room as him. When he steals his glimpses of her she feels like Sansa Stark again, and she has missed that.

“Dragons!” Robert demands again, and the sound of his piercing wail prompts Alayne to place her hand on his back to soothe him. His courtesy is short-lived, but she will spare him the pain of a fit if she can. “Tell us about the dragons!”

Alayne inclines her head. “Dragons do relate to Sweetrobin’s reading, Lord Jon. We would welcome your account of the living creatures.”

He nods, pulls out a chair at Sweetrobin’s other side and sits. “I’m not much of a storyteller,” he begins, as he runs his hand through his hair. The hand she’d laced her own with last night, stroking the pads of her fingers over thick, rigid layers of scarring. His other hand looks far less blemished from here. She wonders where this particular hurt may have come from. A fire, perhaps, because it looks like no ordinary sword wound that Alayne has ever seen. Jon’s face, too, where the skin is pale and puckers around his left eye. It could be the precise work of a knife, she thinks, and that thought makes her want to shudder. He may have seen more horrors than she ever did at King’s Landing, during his time at the Wall. Alayne bears none of Sansa’s scars on her skin.

She’s staring, she knows, but Sweetrobin has not noticed yet. Jon may have, but he’s clearing his throat and watching the boy carefully as he starts to speak of Queen Daenerys’s three fledgling dragons.

She tries to be unobtrusive as she pushes out her chair to leave the library to them. Sweetrobin will tell her all about the dragons later when she tucks him into bed, and Alayne needs to clear her head.

…..

Her feet will be frozen to the bone later, and in her bedchamber Gretchel will have bank as high a fire as she can to ward off Alayne’s chill. She doesn’t often go for walks in the garden now the snow has risen past her ankles, but Sansa was made for cold and Alayne will weather through it, too. It’s some peace from Robert’s chattering, and even Petyr will not come after her out here anymore, where the flowers are buried and the trees seem almost dead. She wears an overlarge furred cloak and hood pulled over her head that once belonged to Lady Lysa, trimmed in the blue and white of House Arryn. The moon and falcon sigil is embroidered on her breast. Matching silk gloves fail to warm her hands, clenched in fists as they fight to hold her skirt above the wave of snow. At least the snow has stopped falling for a time, and the winds have ceased.

Alayne sees a flurry of movement from a snowbank as she trudges past it, and stops.

“Ghost?” It’s the red eyes that give him away amongst all of his white fur. At the sound of his name, the direwolf approaches her tentatively. She holds out a hand for him to sniff, though she knows he recognizes her already. He licks her hand, glove and all, instead, and Alayne cannot help herself--she lets out a peal of laughter.

“Ghost,” she says again, with fondness, and crouches down beside him to stroke behind his ears. Her skirt will be soaked up to her hips and Alayne ought to be afraid of wolves anyway, she considers, and cannot bring herself to care. She imagines what Lady might be like, full-grown and as enormous as Ghost. At least Nymeria got away--but she can’t even remember what Arya’s direwolf looked like. She buries her face in his neck to feel his fur against her skin, pleased by his warmth. A silly indulgence, but a worthwhile one. Ghost is docile enough with her--after all this time, he must be able to smell the North on her still, but he will not give away her secret.

She hears the crunch of snow on the path behind her and a sharp intake of breath, and she knows who it has to be. Alayne fixes a polite smile as she turns her head around to look at him, speaking before he gets a chance to breathe her name.

“Come to fetch your direwolf, Lord Jon?” she asks him brightly. He wears no hood and snowflakes fallen from tree branches are caught in his black curls. He watches her with a furrow between his brows, puzzled. Which he ought to be--Alayne does not blame him.

“Yes,” he says, sounding uncertain. “I did not expect to find you out here, too. Alayne.”

“I was made for the cold.” She stands and smooths her skirt. Out of habit, more than anything. There will be no brushing off the ice and snow that’s attached itself already, and she’s only getting her gloves wet and cold as well. “I would walk with you, so that we might talk. Petyr has no ears out here, but his eyes are everywhere. A stroll together would not go unnoticed.” She looks up toward the balcony where Lady Lysa had watched as Petyr kissed Alayne that first time. It’s empty now, but that does not mean that Petyr or one of his men had not been watching only a moment ago.

Ghost darts away from her, to Jon. But then Jon is walking forward, taking her gloved wrist in hand. His gloves are made of leather, and probably lined with wool or fur besides. She can feel the warmth of him through the thin layer of silk that encases her wrist. “I would walk with you anyway.” His breath swirls white in the air between them. “Please.”

“If we converse for longer than a moment, he’ll want to know why,” Alayne says, speaking in an undertone even though she knows no one is listening. “We shall have to lie.”

Jon’s face screws up with displeasure at the idea of it, and Alayne’s smile now is a real one. His son or his nephew, it matters not--he’s more like Eddard Stark than she is. She slips her arm into the crook of his elbow and steers him along. The real garden path is covered in snow, so they follow only the furrows of her old tracks from earlier days while Ghost moves on ahead of them both.

“I shall tell him you thought yourself a gallant knight, coming to rescue his daughter from the cold and icy day. You may tell him what a fool you think I am, for being out in it in the first place.”

She feels his eyes on her and pretends not to notice, staring up at the sky instead, under a blanket of clouds as thick as the snow beneath their feet. Their reprieve from the snowfall will not last long.

“You’re not a fool.” She can feel his body tense in the link of their arms. “This is--it reminds you of home, doesn’t it?” His voice goes softer at the end in a way that threatens to soften her, too.

She braces herself and pushes forward. “You will make a bad liar, like that. Maybe I will tell him you flirted with me,” Alayne says. She finally cocks her head to look at him, her tone teasing and light. “You’re a Targaryen, after all. He might believe me, if I told him you wished to seduce the baseborn girl who looks so much like your sister.”

Jon’s cheeks are pink, and Alayne has spent too much trying not to look at him so she cannot tell if his blush is from her words or simply from the cold. “Stop that,” he mutters.

Alayne is almost as tall as he is--it would be so easy to forget herself, to turn her head a little more and press her lips to his bearded cheek in mute apology. She settles for a quiet “I did not mean to be cruel. Only we must be very careful.”

“Why are you here? Can you tell me that?”

“Better here than in King’s Landing. I must be grateful to Petyr for that.” Better his bed than Joffrey’s, better Alayne than Sansa Stark, a head on a pike in front of the Red Keep.

“But you’re not safe here,” Jon says, sounding almost angry. “You can’t be, or you would not mind so much if Baelish knew that I--”

“That is for your sake, I promise you,” she interrupts. “He will kill you all the sooner, for every one of his secrets you uncover. Stay away from the rookery, or he will think for certain that you are reporting to the Dragon Queen things that he would rather have kept silent. He’ll silence you, for that.”

“And what of Winterfell?” _What about home?_ she hears.

“I miss it more than anything.” Such honesty is bearable with Jon. Who else could she confess it to?

“I can take you with me, when I leave. I’m going North. Winterfell may not be safe, but Manderly would take care of you in White Harbor. When the war is over, you can go home.”

He makes no such promises for himself, she notes, and he calls it a war as if they will be fighting off another king or conqueror, instead of the whole of whatever terror lies Beyond the Wall.

“You would have had an easier time secreting me away from King’s Landing. Taking me through Sky and Snow and Stone will be impossible. Perhaps I will find my own way home, Jon. You must look for me at Winterfell when the war is over. For my part, I will keep you informed of Petyr’s plots while you are here, and see that you survive them. I can manage that much.”

He huffs. A silent plume of white from his nostrils in the frosty air. Half dragon, half wolf. He might see her safely from this place, if she would let him take that risk.

“Sansa,” he says, and that is all.

Alayne slides her arm from his grasp. “I will leave you now. We should not go in together.” She holds her head high as she walks past him, to where she will go back inside the Eyrie’s marble walls and change into a dry dress. Petyr will be watching, and she must play aloof for Jon’s sake.

 

 


End file.
